NEW: Portland sex worker-led groups are building power and community to overcome the unique mix of challenges they face. The June 2 celebration came as decriminalization efforts have stalled, police harassment has intensified and groups face huge funding cuts. www.streetroots.org/news-stories...

Fun FYI: Sarah Wolf and I won 1st place for "Business & Economics Reporting - Large" from SPJ Region 10 for a series we did on the impacts of Trump tariffs on the SW WA shipping economy! (And reporting I did on a wave of bankruptcies hitting WA apple farmers won 2nd!) docs.google.com/document/d/1...

A massive data center is the planned recipient of green energy generated by a $3.3 billion project long opposed by Yakama Nation.

Remember that pumped hydro project sited on a Yakama sacred site? The one the developer said would power 500K Oregon and Washington homes?? The one that was supposedly critical to meeting WA's renewable energy goals??? JK it's actually for a data center. Green colonialism has been a scam all along.

NEW: Yakama Nation has spent nearly a decade fighting a $3.3B hydro project on a Columbia Gorge sacred site. Now, @streetroots.bsky.social confirmed the landowner intends for the project to pair with "the world’s greenest 1GW+ hyperscale data center" on the site. www.streetroots.org/news-stories...

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez speaking on the house floor yesterday⬇️ about the findings of my investigation into who is buying up $100m+ in land in WA’s 2nd poorest county, then ending public access. “Our local economies and ways of life are at risk.” - MGP www.columbian.com/news/2026/ma...

Who is Nathaniel VerGow, Multnomah County's newly appointed leader of its Homeless Services Department? Documents show the former social worker effectively ran homelessness programs in LA, but he's leaving his former employer amid its disarray.

Meet Street Roots' new investigative reporter, Henry Brannan. www.streetroots.org/news-stories...

EXCLUSIVE: Behind the scenes, the Trump administration has been wielding its vast power to transform the midterm elections. This is the untold story of Trump’s efforts to, as he has called it, “take over” the midterms.

Who is the new head of Multnomah County’s Homeless Services Department? I went down the Nathaniel VerGow rabbit hole last week to bring you this early sketch: “Is Nathaniel VerGow ditching a sinking ship, or bringing a much-needed lifeboat?” www.streetroots.org/news-stories...

1/5 - Job update: I’m now an investigative reporter at Street Roots! I sent my first official pitch to SR about 6 yrs ago. Its editors then spent the next 1.5 yrs schooling me, before sending me off to jobs at PBS NewsHour, NPR stations and beyond. www.streetroots.org/news-stories...

Gonna put links below to some work from my last job that I never got around to sharing but am proud of. A German prince, an $85m technicality, strange bedfellow lobbying campaigns and the project to drill a 2000'+ deep tunnel into a Yakama Nation sacred site ⬇️ www.columbian.com/news/2026/ma...

Pres. Trump's budget maintains many Columbia salmon recovery programs — despite huge cuts throughout '25. Insiders told me the cuts brought together a wide-ranging group of powerful interests to ask Congress to restore funding. WA's powerful delegation delivered. www.columbian.com/news/2026/fe...

USFS is weighing whether to extend a temporary 2025 ban on commercial huckleberry harvests in Gifford Pinchot. The ban followed decades of advocacy by Native nations motivated by significant harms to berry habitat, gatherer safety and treaty-reserved rights. www.columbian.com/news/2026/ja...

My latest essay for HCN critically interrogates the phrase "time immemorial," which Indigenous affairs reporters like me sometimes overuse. www.hcn.org/issues/58-1/...

NEW: WA's Congressional delegation asked President Trump to approve the state's expedited emergency declaration today. The ask comes as the Cowlitz + other rivers flood. But also amid the politicization of disaster aid. The White House told TDN it hasn't received the request. tdn.com/news/local/g...

Officials in timber-dependent counties around SW WA say the state's new rule expanding no-logging zones around some streams amounts to an economic siege waged from Olympia. “They just want us to be able to make their beds and flip their burgers..." www.columbian.com/news/2025/de...

New: Global ag giant Nutrien is looking to build a $500m-$1b Longview fertilizer export plant in 2027, company officials told TDN. The decision had been seen as a test between the U.S. and Canada of who could offer more to woo investment. tdn.com/news/local/b...

This is truly mind boggling... Amazon is the US' 2nd biggest employer and aims to have robots running 75% of its operations. What will happen to the people they employed? What will happen to the US economy as its consumer spending backbone takes this hit?

New: Skamania County has tied its previous search and rescue record with more than 2 months left in 2025. The costly rescues have compounded the county's fiscal crisis and pushed the sheriff to try to fine "reckless or negligent" recreationists who call for rescue. www.columbian.com/news/2025/oc...

The $31b Columbia River shipping industry is feeling the impacts of President Donald Trump’s effort to remake the U.S. economy to be less reliant on imports. The effects have been mixed for SW WA — leaving uneasiness in the place of the outright fear. www.columbian.com/news/2025/oc...

New: How do the fish health advisories that inform anglers of the dangers lurking in their catch start? With a small team of state researchers, and some 911 calls reporting aliens on the water, as it turns out: www.columbian.com/news/2025/oc...

1/2 "Never before has so much money been spent so rapidly on a technology that, for all its potential, remains largely unproven as an avenue for profit-making. The recent wave of deals and partnerships involving the two are escalating concerns that an increasingly.. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

New: A ban on commercial huckleberry harvest in Gifford Pinchot this year was a success for conservation and Native nations' treaty-reserved rights. But with the ban set to expire before next harvest, will the Forest Service continue it? www.columbian.com/news/2025/oc...

New: Killing sea lions has become an increasingly popular solution to salmon extinction as agreements fall apart & Trump guts funding. The 2020 permit allowing the killings generated 22k+ comments, only ~200 in favor. That same permit received 1 comment this month. www.columbian.com/news/2025/se...

New: Last year I covered a 1.1-mile swim across the Columbia, and the characters that made it a cherished tradition. Along the way, I accidentally promised some of them that I'd join this year... last weekend, after a year of training, I did. www.columbian.com/news/2025/se...

New: A look at the political tightrope walk that keeps federal $ flowing into the Columbia River shipping system. The $ is key in keeping the system globally competitive at a time when intl businesses are rethinking trade relationships w/ the US amid growing costs. www.columbian.com/news/2025/au...

The bird flu virus that has beset dairy farms since early last year may be spreading through the air in so-called milking parlors and through contaminated wastewater (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/h...

New: Emergency response and tsunami modeling officials said this week's 8.8 quake off Russia's Pacific coast is a warning to the PNW about its own looming megaquakes — and the need for the region to prepare. www.columbian.com/news/2025/au...

SCOOP: The manifests for three legally contested deportation flights to El Salvador contain the names of dozens of people who have not been acknowledged in any way by the US government. Immigration experts following the case say they don't know where these people are www.404media.co/flight-manif...

New: Environmental group Save Our Wild Salmon released its first Columbia River Hot Water Report of the year Wednesday. It comes as water temperatures throughout the basin this year have *already* surpassed the key 68-degree threshold for salmon survival. www.columbian.com/news/2025/ju...

Seattle Times sharing the jetty story:

After 6 yrs, 32k boulders and $172M, the Army Corps' rebuild of the Columbia River South Jetty is almost done. The barrier allows ships carrying $31B in goods a year to pass the dangerous estuary where 2,000,000 gallons of water crash into the Pacific every second. www.columbian.com/news/2025/ju...

Mississippi River shippers got a 6 day tour of Columbia River shipping system last week. The tour stretched from Cape Disappointment to Lewiston, ID. It was aimed at building a united voice to advocate for US grain shippers' interests. www.columbian.com/news/2025/ju...

New: SW Washington steel importers are hurting after President Trump doubled import taxes to 50% earlier this month. Local importers and ports say the move will lead to higher consumer costs and layoffs in associated industries. Projections back that up. www.columbian.com/news/2025/ju...

If the GOP reconciliation bill passes, ICE gets through FY2029: - $45 billion for detention, on top of the current annual budget of $3.4 billion - $14.4 billion for transportation and removal, on top of the current annual budget of $750 million - $8 billion for hiring/retention - Billions more.

New from 404 Media: ICE is using a new facial recognition app to identify people, leaked emails show. Point camera at person, reveal their identity. It uses the CBP system that records peoples' faces as they enter or exit the U.S. Now, turned inwards to be used by ICE www.404media.co/ice-is-using...

Once logging and fishing-dependent Cathlamet has reinvented itself as a leisure and recreation-hub. But can the rising tide raise all boats? www.columbian.com/news/2025/ju...

NEW: President Trump today pulled out of a $1 billion Biden-era plan to restore salmon populations across the Columbia River Basin. The move is likely to restart a decadeslong legal battle over the harm the hydropower system inflicts upon endangered fish. www.columbian.com/news/2025/ju...

Earth will warm 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels in just two years, new data shows. Irreversible tipping points — like the melting of Arctic ice sheets or the collapse of coral reefs — are closer at hand than previously believed.

A leaked Trump administration budget proposal completely scraps a key Columbia River salmon recovery program as the president works to slash NOAA's funding. The program has invested $115 million across 342 projects currently underway within the basin. www.columbian.com/news/2025/ju...

The Trump administration is canceling a nearly $600-million contract to the drugmaker Moderna that was intended to develop a shot for humans against bird flu.

Diary of a Gazan family's descent toward starvation reut.rs/4jB7Dcd

Scoop: The Trump administration has cut tens of millions of dollars from a key Columbia Basin salmon-restoration program run by the Army Corps of Engineers. The 46% cut to the program's required work is a part of a ~$1.5b cut to the Corps' national FY25 budget. www.columbian.com/news/2025/ma...

NEW: President Trump’s trade war is now disrupting the ~$31 billion Columbia River trade system, costing SW WA businesses millions and likely leading to layoffs. Marine importers are already feeling the pain while exporters are bracing for impact this fall. www.columbian.com/news/2025/ma...

The effect of Israel’s total siege on Gaza has become catastrophic, doctors say. Shortages of food, water and medicine are prompting a surge of preventable illnesses, and deaths. nyti.ms/3GzOJV1

New projections show PNW power demand may double in next 20 years fueled by an explosion in the # of data centers, electric vehicles and electric appliances. But, with many proposed energy projects facing pushback for harms they cause, where will power come from? www.columbian.com/news/2025/ma...

There is very limited information moving in and out of Gaza. Medical workers are one group that gets a ground view. Some American doctors returning from Gaza compared notes and started to see a pattern.

For nearly 60 days, no food, fuel, medicine or other items has entered the Gaza Strip, blocked by Israel. Aid groups are running out of food to distribute. Markets are nearly bare. Palestinian families are left struggling to feed their children.

New: A move by federal water managers to pause a landmark environmental review of the Columbia River hydropower system has left stakeholders and tribes across the basin holding their breath. Routine move or the end of hopes for lower Snake River dam removal? www.columbian.com/news/2025/ap...